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The paper examines the compatibility of two UK policy priorities – extending working life (EWL) and the promotion of national economic performance through high performance work practices (HPWP).

Empirical analysis has been conducted using data from WERS2011 to test hypotheses on whether age moderates the link between HPWP and employee well-being outcomes.

Development-oriented human resource strategies are found to compromise the wellbeing of older workers relative to younger ones, while some dimensions of HPWP lead to more favourable wellbeing outcomes for older workers relative to their younger counterparts (flexible working, performance-related pay and appraisal systems).

At older ages those still in the workforce may be over-represented by happier and psychologically more robust individuals who have settled into jobs they find fulfilling, matching their personal characteristics and abilities. If so, the adverse well-being influence of development-oriented strategies may be understated, while favourable well-being outcomes for older workers may be overstated.

HRM strategies may need to be more age sensitive to support the EWL agenda better.

While many studies have examined the link between HPWP and a range of individual-level outcomes, less widely researched is whether responses vary by age, which the paper addresses.

This paper aims to improve our understanding of performance measurement systems in the health and care sector, by focussing on employee reactions to core performance measurement practices. Targets and monitoring are hypothesised to be associated with employee perceptions of job control, supportive management and job demands, which in turn, are expected to be linked to employee-wellbeing and organisational commitment.

Matched employee workplace data are extracted from a nationally representative and publicly available survey. Structural equation models are estimated.

Performance measurement systems are neither perceived as resources nor additional demands. Setting many targets and a focus on productivity can lead to negative employee outcomes, since these positively correlate with perceptions of job demands, which negatively correlate with employee wellbeing. However, monitoring financial performance and monitoring employee performance may be helpful to managers, as these are positively associated with employee perceptions of job control and supportive management, which positively correlate with job satisfaction and organisational commitment and, negatively, with anxiety. Overall, common criticisms of performance measurement systems in healthcare are questioned.

Given the lack of consensus on how performance measurement systems can influence employee experiences and outcomes, this study combines theories that argue for performance measurement systems in managing operations with models developed by psychologists to describe how perceptions of the work conditions can affect employee attitude and wellbeing. A conceptual model is therefore developed and tested, and potential direct and indirect effects of performance measurement systems in the health sector are inferred.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the UK workforce in general has experienced a period of stagnant and falling wages in both nominal and real terms. The main parties involved remain unsure of the consequences from such a historically unusual phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the main effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of those employees who had experienced pay reductions (nominal wage cuts or pay freezes under a positive inflation rate) as compared with those who experienced nominal pay rises during the recent recession; and second, to examine the moderating effect of employee involvement (EI) practices on that relationship. This was done by using aggregated employee perception data to measure organizational EI practices.

Employee-employer matched data were used, involving 8,489 employees and their associated 497 organizations (medium or large sized). The number of employees from each organization was between 15 and 25. The data used were extracted from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study in the UK to which the authors applied hierarchical linear regression in STATA 13.

The results indicate that when compared with those employees who had nominal pay rises during the recession, employees who had wage cuts or freezes (with 5 percent inflation rate) are significantly and negatively associated with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, even when controlling for important variables such as perception of job insecurity and the degree of adverse impact caused by recession on the organization studied. That is to say, facing the same perception of job loss, those who experienced pay reductions are significantly unhappier and less committed than those who had pay rises. However, the adverse effect of pay reductions on employees’ work attitudes is much less in workplaces characterized by a high, as opposed to a low level, of EI practices.

Implications, limitations, and further research issues are discussed in light of current employment relations’ practices.

The intention is to extend the current debate on employment relations under adverse changes such as pay reductions. Thus, the unique contribution of this study is to examine the value of EI in modifying extreme employee reactions to adverse changes.

Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, employers provide sick pay in addition to the public sick pay. Using comparative population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway, we show that close to 50% of private sector employers in both countries provide sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. However, the level of statutory sick pay is also much higher in Norway than in Britain. In both countries, private sick pay as well as other benefits provided by employers are chosen by employers in a way that maximizes profits having accounted for different dimensions of labor costs. Several health-related privately provided benefits are often bundled. In both countries easy-to-train workers, high turnover and risky work are linked to less extensive employer provision of extended sick leave and sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. In contrast, the presence of a trade union agreement is strongly correlated with both the provision of private sick pay and extended sick leave in Britain but not in Norway. We show that the sickness absence rate is much higher in Norway than in Britain. However, the higher level of absenteeism in Norway compared to Britain relates to the threshold for statutory sick pay in the Norwegian public sick pay legislation. When we take this difference into account, no significant difference remains.

The purpose of this paper is to address potential effects of the control element in quality management. First, behavioural theories on how elements of performance management can affect organisational performance are examined. Second, theoretical models on how perceptions of work conditions may impact well-being and performance are considered. Direct and indirect pathways from performance management to productivity/quality are inferred.

Matched employee-workplace data from an economy-wide survey in Britain and two-level structural equation models are used to test the hypothesised associations.

The use of practices in workplaces is inconsistent with a unified performance management approach. Distinct outcomes are expected from separate components in performance management and some may be contingent on workplace size. For example, within quality planning, strategy dissemination is positively associated with workplace productivity; targets are negatively associated with perceptions of job demands and positively correlated with job satisfaction, which in turn can increase workplace productivity. With respect to information and analysis: keeping and analysing records, or monitoring employee performance via appraisals that assess training needs, are positively associated with workplace productivity and quality.

This paper illustrates how control in quality management can be effective. Although the merits of performance management are subject to ongoing debate, arguments in the literature have tended to focus on performance appraisal. Analyses of economy-wide data linking performance management practices, within quality management, to employee perceptions of work conditions, well-being and aggregate performance are rare.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolving role of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) across a 40-year period against a backdrop of changing workplaces and institutional frameworks.

The paper draws on the statistical and evaluation evidence together with policy commentary and employment relations literature to provide a commentary on the changing world of employment relations.

Two areas have dominated policy concerns over the period: patterns of employment disputes and the question of employment regulation. The paper argues that such a focus has stimulated some dramatic changes in the way disputes manifest in Britain, and at the same time left something of a policy vacuum in relation to the wide challenges and opportunities for improving conflict handling and the employment relationship. Through the prism of Acas’ work the paper identifies some of the enduring features that are common to improving both collective and individual relationship at work.

The paper brings together evidence from different sources combined with the unique perspectives of Acas and its service users to draw and provide explanations for aspects of the changing face of the work.

A range of studies have shown that performance is typically higher in organisations with employee share ownership (ESO) schemes in place. Many possible causal mechanisms explaining this relationship have been suggested. These include a reduction in labour turnover, synergies with other forms of productivity-enhancing communication and participation schemes, and synergies with employer-provided training. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper empirically assesses these potential linkages using data from the 2004 and 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, and provides comparisons with earlier analyses conducted on the 1990 and 1998 versions of the survey.

Substantial differences are found between the 2004 and 2011 results: a positive relationship between ESO and workplace productivity and financial performance, observed in 2004, is no longer present in 2011. In both years, ESO is found to have no clear relationship with labour turnover, and there is no significant association between turnover and performance. There is, however, a positive moderating relationship with downward communication schemes in 2004 and in 2011 in the case of labour productivity. There is no corresponding relationship for upward involvement schemes.

The results are only partially supportive of extant theory and its various predictions, and the relationship between ESO and performance seems to have weakened over time.

The study further questions the rhetoric offered in support of wider ESO.

This chapter reports on attempts to develop a more integrated and strategic approach to managing conflict within a large state-owned provider of healthcare in the United Kingdom that goes beyond more conventional offerings such as workplace mediation.

It adopted a detailed four-stage mixed-methods organizational case study approach, with the findings reported here drawing primarily on semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders, including line managers.

The data suggest that a systematic and integrated approach to identifying conflict and a range of coordinated interventions involving key organizational stakeholders can begin to embed a culture of resolution. There is resistance to such innovation, however, rooted in perceptions that it potentially weakens the authority of front-line managers.

The research reported here provides the first UK evidence for the adoption of an Integrated Conflict Management System and for the potential of such strategic choices and approaches to effect culture change in the manner sought by policy-makers.

While the potential for HR practices (HRPs) to improve organisational performance is well-established, the mechanisms by which this occurs are complex. Individual HRPs may affect organisational performance either by mutual gains (improving both organisational performance and employee well-being) or by conflicting outcomes (organisational performance is improved at the expense of employee well-being). Models which combine HRPs may mask these differences and this study therefore tests pathways for four individual HRPs.

HRPs (employee involvement, pay, performance management and training) were hypothesised to influence organisational performance directly and indirectly via employee experiences of work (communication, autonomy) and employee well-being. The study used a large secondary dataset, the UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey 2011, to test these relationships in a multi-level model.

Employee experiences of work strongly predicted well-being. In addition, three different pathways from HRP to organisational performance were identified. Pay showed indirect negative effects, involvement had direct positive effects and performance management had a mixture of both positive direct and negative indirect effects on performance.

Using a disaggregated analysis of HRP and demonstrating their differing effects, this study questions the feasibility of a universal model of HRP effects. By using multi-level modelling (MLM), the study develops understanding of employee perspectives and integrates these into organisational-level models, demonstrating that performance effects are partially mediated by both employee experiences of work and employee well-being. Finally, the study highlights the complexity of performance effects achieved via both employee benefits and an intensification of employee experiences.